Napolitano says no opt outs for Secure Communities program

A record number of undocumented immigrants have been deported in the last year: more than 392,000. This is due in large part to 287(g) and Secure Communities, two relatively new programs where the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency works with local law enforcement to identify undocumented immigrant “criminals.” The 287(g) program allows state and local law enforcement entities to enter into a partnership with ICE and thus enforce immigration laws within a given jurisdiction. Secure Communities establishes a technological presence by requiring that any arrested immigrant’s fingerprints be entered into FBI and ICE databases. If there is record of any immigration violation, ICE and local law enforcement are immediately notified. This can immediately put someone into deportation proceedings.

Communities have to actively request to participate in the 287(g) program. Conversely, Secure Communities comes to you. In the past couple of months, there has been much confusion as to whether counties could choose not to participate in the program. US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano issued a letter stating that local agencies could voice objections before the program deployed, so certain places such as San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and Arlington County, Va., collectively chose to opt out.

On October 6, Napolitano stated that, “we do not see this as an opt-in, opt-out program,” mainly because the only way that a jurisdiction could choose not to participate would be by refusing to send fingerprints to the federal criminal-justice system, which contradicts the goal to fight crime. ICE plans to have this program expanded to every part of the United States by 2013. The issue of the opt-out remains unclear, as NY Governor Paterson claims that he’s made a special arrangement with the Department of Homeland Security, allowing jurisdictions within the state to opt out.

Immigrants who overstay their visas or enter the country without authorization are not considered criminals; unauthorized immigration is an administrative violation. The Obama administration has sought to distinguish such immigrants from those who have committed actual crimes.

However, records show that even those with minor offenses or no offenses at all have been affected by these programs. According to Chung-Wha Hong, the executive director at New York Immigration Coalition, “79% of the people placed in detention facilities or deported under Secure Communities were convicted of minor crimes or had no charges filed against them at all.”

What is even more difficult to swallow is overhearing six year-olds talking to each other about how a cousin, or an uncle is in jail and will probably be deported for driving without a license, or how they are staying home Fourth of July weekend because of the retenes, the roadblocks, that will probably be in effect that weekend. How can it be possible that such vocabulary, such fear, exist in a young child’s life? These cases exist in my home community because of 287 (g).

But these problems extend past issues of traffic violations- what about survivors of crime? Why would anyone step forward and report an actual crime when they fear that interacting with police could lead to their own deportation?

Is the Secure Communities program actually creating secure communities, and for whom? Certainly not for all, even though as it stands, it will be expanded to every community throughout the US. Secure Communities seems a paradox of a title, as the program targets immigrant communities, but perhaps those communities are not included in the audience ICE is seeking to secure.